Central Asian Survey

ISSN: 0263-4937 (Print) 1465-3354 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccas20

Uzbek: an elementary textbook

Mohira Suyarkulova

To cite this article: Mohira Suyarkulova (2012) Uzbek: an elementary textbook, Central Asian
Survey, 31:2, 231-232, DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2012.688505

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2012.688505

Published online: 25 May 2012.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 183

View related articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccas20

Download by: [134.117.10.200] Date: 16 December 2017, At: 18:43

 Book reviews 231

Uzbek: an elementary textbook, by Nigora Azimova, Georgetown University Press, 2010, 520
pp., 8.5 x 11 paperback (1 CD-ROM) ISBN 9781589017061

When I started teaching Uzbek at the University of St Andrews four years ago, I was faced with
the challenge of finding an appropriate book to train English-speaking social scientists hoping to
conduct research in Central Asia. Only limited resources were available to an Uzbek-language
instructor at an English-speaking university. That is why Nigora Azimova’s textbook is a long-
awaited and much-needed addition to the toolbox of all those teaching and learning modern
Uzbek through the medium of the English language.
Uzbek: an elementary textbook is designed to aid classroom instruction and is based on many
years of teaching Uzbek at Indiana University within the Centre for Languages of the Central
Asian Region (CeLCAR) project. The textbook is organized thematically around general
themes commonly found in an introductory language course, such as introducing oneself and
meeting people, family, travel, food, the body and medicine, clothing and shopping, weather,
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 18:43 16 December 2017

climate and nature. The author applies an integrative and communicative approach to language
teaching, incorporating daily language as used by native speakers. Uzbekistan’s society, geogra-
phy, history, everyday life and culture are presented through special notes and use of authentic
materials, pictures, video and audio-recordings made by the author in Uzbekistan.
A ‘functional approach to grammar presentation’ is at the core of the presentation of new
material in the reviewed book. Such an approach emphasizes practical uses of language and
is beneficial for inexperienced language learners who may be unfamiliar with grammatical cat-
egories. For instance, a chapter on daily routines (Chapter six, ‘Kundalik ishlar’) starts with a
presentation narrating a usual day in a life of a young man called Sherzod. This is a universally
recognisable concept, which is used to introduce new grammar material such as the Uzbek
present-future tense and the correct word order in an Uzbek sentence. This approach also
allows thematic introduction of new vocabulary: adverbs of time, words for times of the day
and names of the months and weekdays, verbs for everyday actions, and so on. All of this is
done through a series of exercises often corresponding to audio and video files on the accompa-
nying CD. This approach also aids instruction where the language teacher is not a trained linguist
but a native speaker teaching the language part-time.
The book is beautifully illustrated with original drawings and photographs. It is broken down
into activities that greatly enhance classroom learning, providing plenty of listening, speaking,
reading and writing practice exercises. Although the book is not intended as a self-study guide, it
does allow for independent work, especially with the interactive activities on the CD-ROM
included with the text. Even in the absence of contact with a native-speaker instructor or
language helper it is possible for a student using this textbook to hear the correct pronunciation
of words, the right intonations and even variations of language in a different dialect (mostly
Tashkent).
For those who learn Uzbek in order to conduct research in Uzbekistan, the book is an invalu-
able guide, providing basic competencies and lots of additional information regarding various
dialects of Uzbek language, norms of politeness and propriety, idiomatic forms and non-
verbal communication. For instance, in Chapter 12, which is thematically organized around
food and hospitality (‘Xush kelibsiz, aziz mehmon!’), the students will learn not only the
vocabulary for foodstuffs and related items, they will also discover the etiquette and practices
associated with eating and hosting and being a guest in an Uzbek household. Video footage
of a group of women who come to meet the new kelin (daughter-in-law) of the house allows
a language-learner to experience a mini-ethnography of domestic life in Uzbekistan, and
observe the performance of the social and gender roles in the conduct of hospitality. Another
useful feature for someone planning to conduct research in Uzbek and/or in Uzbekistan is the
 232 Book reviews

Cyrillic reader in the appendix to the book, which trains learners to read and write in Cyrillic
script, including the use of the cursive joined-up writing commonly used by Uzbek speakers.
This is an excellent book, however, there are still some aspects of it that could be improved.
Although the author states in the preface that the dialogues and conversations in the videos on
the CD-ROM were unscripted, I had the impression that they were staged and not quite natural.
Moreover, the sound of some of the recordings was too quiet and therefore hard to follow for the
students. I have also noticed that transcripts for the videos corresponding to Chapters 15 and 16
were not included in the appendix. There are also some typographical mistakes in the book,
although they are very few.
Overall, however, I would highly recommend this book as an up-to-date, colourful, fun and
thorough tool for classroom instruction of Uzbek.

Mohira Suyarkulova
University of St Andrews
Downloaded by [134.117.10.200] at 18:43 16 December 2017

Email: mrs26@st-andrews.ac.uk
# 2012, Mohira Suyarkulova
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2012.688505

Russian minority politics in post-Soviet Latvia and Kyrgyzstan: the transformative power
of informal networks, by Michele E. Commercio, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2010, 248 pp., US$59.95/£39, ISBN 978-0-8122-4221-8

In Transformative power of informal networks, Michele Commercio analyses the impact of infor-
mal networks on the social and political participation of Russian minority groups in two formerly
Soviet Union republics: Kyrgyzstan and Latvia. The volume explores the facilitating role of
informal networks to explain the extent of minority-group participation in the socioeconomic
life and politics of the countries in which they find themselves. Commercio analyses political
institutions’ impact on actor preferences for different types of engagement. She lays out the
opportunities available to Russian minorities within the nexus of ‘exit, voice and loyalty’ suggesting
that only the first two are really an option for minority groups in states undergoing nation-cum-state
building. Commercio’s answer is that the extant formal institutional design and acceptance of
informal arrangements allow one to predict the variation in levels of voice and exit.
The book has two parts, each oscillating between the institution- and actor-centred perspec-
tives on the role of formal and informal networks. Chapter one introduces the reader to the
impact of the initial stage of transition (1991 –2005) on Russian minority communities in
Latvia and Kyrgyzstan, suggesting competing explanations for voice and exit options, and out-
lines the general conceptual framework for the study of informal networks in post-Communism.
Commercio proposes that ‘the absence or presence of dense interpersonal informal networks
explains different responses [of Russian minorities] to various forms of discrimination’, pointing
out that informal institutions are ‘an integral element of a complex constellation of variables that
shapes outcomes related to minority politics’ (p. 5). Chapter two discusses nation building and
the politics of nationalization in the Soviet successor states, echoing major debates on minority
politics affecting Russian minorities in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The main argument here
is that institutional path dependency during the earlier periods of state building has a direct effect
on post-Communist interethnic relations. The thrust of the argument is that domestic insti-
tutional dynamics are independent from external factors, specifically the impact of minorities’
external ‘homelands’ (p. 24). Chapter three provides an obligatory review of Soviet nationalities